We're in the Baltic!!

Oh yes.

We're in the Baltic.

That's the Baltic Sea.

B-A-L-T-I-C.

Not the English Channel (La Manche! Tssk - the French! Such wags!) but the one bordered by Denmark, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Norway (remember that lot Abigail and you're sure to impress your teacher!).

The Baltic (thanks Imray!)

We're in it and we got here in our own boat.

Pleased with ourselves? Nah!! (Well maybe a little...).

We're now in Dusternbrook marina in the Kieler Forde, having motored (you have to) through the Kiel Canal in two stages - Brunsbuttel to Rendsburg (37 miles) and then Rendsberg to Holtenau (17 miles). 

The canal itself is quite boring with few significant landmarks. The pictures below are typical.

Kiel Canal. The only ship to pass us.

We did see a few coming the other way though

Some of the bridges were quite impressive

A typical view of the canal

3 long, loud and very deep blasts and then this appeared! 

Poor souls, missing out on so much in their air conditioned luxury....

Transporter bridge near Rendsberg. Trains go over the top and cars swing from the white cradle slung underneath it.

The white cradle is pictured bottom right

Because there are no tides in the Baltic or the Kiel canal, boats don't need to tie up to pontoons that float up and down with the water. Instead, they commonly tie up in box moorings. The "box" is made up of two posts to which you tie the stern of your boat and a pontoon that you approach with your bow.

"All" you have to do is pass a line from your stern cleat over the windward post (the post that is upwind from you ) as you pass it; kick fenders over once past the posts (there's not usually room between them for your fenders to be hanging down as you pass); and then stop before you T-bone the pontoon. Your crew then deftly leaps ashore and secures a line from the windward side of the bow to a post (or other type of fitting). Then you just shuffle the boat backwards to put a line from the other side of your stern over the second post, before taking a further line to the pontoon from the other side of the bow.

Simples? Yeh, right! Hard enough for us box mooring novices at the best of times - even without the 22 knot crosswind gust that materialised just as we attempted our first box mooring at Rendsburg! Perhaps more by luck than judgement (and with a bit of help from a little old lady on the pontoon - a tough old bird as it happened!) we tied up ok.

The line of empty box moorings alongside our own at Rendsburg

You just tie to the posts...

.... and then to the pontoon.

Rendsburg has some very old buildings and a convenient shopping centre but didn't really inspire us. This is the only picture we took:

An inn dating from the 16th century

Leaving the mooring at Rendsburg wasn't much easier than tying up, but we were soon back in the canal and heading for the locks at Holtenau. As it was a Sunday, there was quite a bit of small boat traffic and they put us in the big lock this time.

Approaching the lock at Holtenau

Once again, the pontoons in the locks were at almost water level, making fending off (and getting on and off for the more vertically challenged!) really quite difficult. Jo got a round of applause from onlookers after she finally managed to climb back on board!

Put your back into it girl! Keep that boat away from the pontoon!!

Looking back towards the lock gate

Our first view of the Baltic - to the left of the sliding lock gate

Kielder Forde. The Baltic Sea!

Cyclone tied up in her second box mooring. The tranquility of the picture belies the shouting, cursing and general pandemonium associated with our arrival!

So our task today is to get a new electronic chart for the boat's plotter and a couple of other bits before we head off towards Aero, an island off the coast of Denmark.

Unless we change our minds, of course!